Light plane collision caught on cockpit camera

A cameraman has filmed the moment a light aircraft collided with another plane in mid-air and started plunging towards a beach in the Netherlands.

Footage of the accident, which occurred on Saturday local time, shows the two single-engine planes flying side-by-side before colliding and becoming stuck together at the wings.

Passengers can be heard shouting in panic as the connected planes struggle to hold their course and start descending towards the coast.

One plane was towing an advertisement for the country's Christian Democratic party (CDA) while the other, which had four passengers on board, was filming a commercial for the Socialist party, Dutch News reports.

The CDA plane was forced to make an emergency landing on a beach with a damaged wing while the other plane returned to Rotterdam airport and made a safe landing.

No one was injured in the collision.

The cameraman on board the Cessna, Eric Donk, told Dutch news channel RTL the encounter was "tense and frightening".

"We were some 150 metres above the ground. I could have touched the other plane if I had wanted to," Donk said.

Dutch aviation safety authorities are now investigating the near-disaster.